


Belief in Things Unseen

by Dawnwind



Category: Starsky and Hutch - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:58:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hutch finds hope in the most unlikely place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belief in Things Unseen

Hutch raised a tentative hand, and let it hover in the air like a stranded starfish for several long seconds before touching Starsky's pale face.

"Aw, Starsk," he whispered, swallowing around the lump lodged in his throat. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He'd imagined a sort of hero's welcome, coming back the conquering warrior to Starsky's sickbed, to find the patient recovered from his wounds far beyond all the doctors' expectations.

This hadn't been in the script--except that he'd felt such foreboding in the airport that he'd called, sweat breaking out all over because the last time he phoned the hospital to check on his partner's status Starsky had been in a full blown cardiac arrest, a code blue. Not quite so earth shattering this time--just a set back, the nurse assured him. Not unexpected. That he'd suffered such massive damage, a post operative infection was no surprise whatsoever.

Well, it had been a surprise to Hutch.

The well-meaning nurse had gone blithely on, apparently unaware that she was terrifying her listener. "We're keeping a close eye on him. Started antibiotics and he's back on the ventilator for a day or two. Have a good flight back!"

Hutch had stood in the airport, staring at the phone with such dread he didn't even hear the first boarding announcement for his flight to LAX. How could she be so cavalier? So weirdly optimistic? Starsky could be dying and Hutch was stuck half a state away.

The last boarding call summoned him onto the plane. Settling into his seat, he looked so white and clammy-skinned that the main cabin flight attendant took him for a phobic. For the first half hour of the trip she solicitously plied him with comfort and a vodka martini to settle his nerves until another passenger demanded her attention. Hutch barely noticed, his focus on a feverish man in Memorial Hospital, Bay City.

Hutch felt detached from reality, jet-lagged perhaps, even though there was no time change between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and he'd only been in the City by the Bay for a total of six hours. Six hours to arrest a monster. A genial, white haired man in an elegant suit who had ordered the death of an inner city cop with less dismay than he showed for a drop in the stock market. James Marshall Gunther, friend to presidents and royalty.

Hutch had read him his rights and cuffed him just like any other felon, all the while wanting to blow the man's fucking brains out with one bullet from his Python. It would have taken less than a second to end the murderer's life, but Hutch couldn't.

 _Wouldn't._

Not because he didn't want to--he itched to pull the trigger so deeply, so intimately, it felt akin to the yearning for a lover. He'd held back and done the right thing for Starsky. Because Starsky would have wanted it that way.

During the whole arrest he'd held the image of his last sight of Starsky's face, those sleepy blue eyes twinkling with a merriment three bullets hadn't dimmed. Starsky had come out of the coma to see him off to battle, wishing the gallant knight Godspeed, and Hutch had planned on a celebratory toast upon his return. A beer for him and ice chips for Starsky. But it was not to be.

Hutch had landed in LAX fearing the worst, and arrived at Memorial to find Starsky once again attached to the ventilator, practically bound to his bed with coils of IV tubing and monitor lead wires.

Had he expected too much? Starsky had been shot nearly a week ago--how could Hutch think he would be up and around?

 _Alakazam, you're Captain Marvel._

Hutch heard Starsky's voice so clearly he started to reply before realizing it was a memory. Starsky couldn't speak, the ventilator tubing that helped him breathe had robbed him of a voice. In fact, Hutch hadn't heard Starsky say anything since he'd proposed a steak and lobster dinner at his favorite restaurant six days ago. First time in their partnership that Starsky had been silent for so long.

"Hey," Hutch said, more to hear himself speak than anything else. The whoosh and thunk of the ventilator filled the space where Starsky should have answered. "I got him for you, Starsk. San Francisco police followed me in and took charge of him, I didn't even have to escort him back. They've got someone else to do that, after he talks to his lawyers up north. So that's it, babe. It's over, you can get better now."

A noise like the pump on an aquarium bubbled cheerfully in time to the ventilator, and Hutch took stock of the machines in the room, just as he did every time he sat down. IV pole with half a dozen bottles and bags of fluids going into Starsky's veins. Burbling chest tube suction contraption, helping to clear his damaged chest of errant blood and air so he'd breathe normally again. Blood pressure cuff curled sloppily over the railing of the bed, and piles of bandage supplies spilling off the side of the nightstand. Then the cumbersome, noisy ventilator forcing Starsky's chest to rise and fall in the normal rhythm he couldn't maintain right now on his own.

Fear welled up inside Hutch so strongly he could actually feel the blackness claiming him. He was afraid to leave again. Look what had happened before. Starsky had died, but revived when Hutch burst into the hospital, and then he'd withered like an unwatered plant the moment Hutch left for San Francisco.

How had he gained such power over his partner? Where had that come from? Had their psychic connection grown so strong that it controlled Starsky's very health?

Berating himself for conjuring up such foolishness, Hutch stood restlessly, feeling trapped. The whoosh, gurgle and thunk of the machinery pounded on his eardrums, making it hard to think rationally. He couldn't leave for fear that Starsky would take another turn for the worse, and he could barely stand to be in the room, so very aware of the specter of death just out of sight.

"Hutchinson," Dobey said from the door, his usual booming voice lowered but still shockingly loud in the closeness of the room. "Just spoke with San Francisco police, Gunther's refusing to be transferred to LA County."

"He's crazy, but he's not insane. The press'll have a field day once he gets here," Hutch said, barely recognizing his own voice. He wasn't even sure how the words were coming out of his mouth, and managing to sound so normal. "Starsky's been on every front page for the last week." Under any other circumstance he suspected Starsky would have been gloating over the headlines. Except the reports were so gory, the press so anxious to paint every drop of red blood spilled on the cement beside the Torino.

 **Decorated Cop Gunned Down in Police Garage.**

 **Cop a Hero, Coworkers Say.**

 **Gunther Behind Cop's Assassination.**

The last one made Hutch want to call into the paper and lodge a complaint. Assassination meant dead. Starsky wasn't dead, not by any stretch of the imagination. He was sick--not even in a coma any more, according to his doctors. Just heavily drugged, and very ill.

"You need to eat."

"Huh?" Hutch had forgotten Dobey was still in the room.

"You haven't moved since you got back here last night."

Last night? Stupidly Hutch stared up at the clock. It was ten, but he hadn't a clue whether it was a.m. or p.m. His flight had landed at LAX at nine-thirty in the evening, and he'd blasted through the sparse freeway traffic to get back to Memorial by ten. Twelve hours gone, and Starsky still lay like a wax copy of the vibrant, jubilant man who'd bested him at ping-pong on May fifteenth.

"I'm not hungry."

"Well, then, go take a shower. That nurse, Evelyna, says you can change into some scrubs."

Hutch looked down at his disheveled clothes. He'd been wearing the same thing for days, only showering and eating when told to. It never occurred to him that he might smell. Starsky hadn't complained so far.

"I can't leave," he whispered finally. "Starsky doesn't want to be alone."

"Edith brought over her knitting and a basket full of food. I'll sit here, son," Dobey's tone was so gentle, so completely different from his usual bluster that Hutch wanted to shout at him. Don't change! Don't act like this is how it all will end, with nothing but blood and pain to remember.

Terry Roberts had charged him with making sure Starsky never changed, and he'd failed miserably. Starsky was irrevocably changed; jagged incisions from the surgeons' scalpels marring his chest. Those wounds were covered with bandages now, but Hutch had seen the evidence of the bullets' destruction every time a nurse came to change the dressings. He knew. He knew that things would never be the same.

So how could Dobey expect him just to walk out that door, turning his back on his own deficiencies like an unfaithful lover?

"You have to believe."

"In what?" Hutch asked bleakly.

"In him," Dobey pointed to Starsky. "And Him." He pointed upwards.

For a moment Hutch was confused, did Dobey know someone on the fourth floor?

 _No, he meant God._

"I stopped praying a long time ago." Too many kidnappings, poisoning, plagues, and shootings had drained away his faith. Memories of getting down on his knees and reciting the prayers learned in Sunday school had faded like pictures left out in the sun. They gave no comfort, just false expectations of a better place.

"Then start. Thank Him for getting us this far, for helping you bring down Gunther, and for hope."

 _Hope._ Hutch had none. He'd used the last drop when he'd hoped for the triumphant welcome only to come home to anguish. "If I could pray, I'd ask for the last six days to vanish. Clean slate, no bullets."

"To believe, you have to have faith." Dobey must have sensed the cynicism in Hutch. He sat down by the bed and took a deep, slow breath the way Hutch did when he was meditating. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. From Hebrews, in the Bible."

"I've read it." Hutch didn't recognize that particular passage. He mostly remembered reading the parts with battles in them. David and Goliath, Joshua bringing down the walls of Jericho, the parting of the Red Sea. The action-packed scenes that had excited the boy he had been.

Dobey regarded him with deep sympathy and then bowed his head, pressing his hands together. Hutch stood transfixed, locked into indecision. Should he stay or go? The noise from the ventilator and chest tube suction seemed to increase in decibels with each passing moment, and the air in the room had become too thick to breathe. It pressed down on his lungs with terrific force, crushing his body until he could stand it no longer. Leaving Starsky with Dobey's hope and prayer, he fled.

Between them, Evelyna and Edith helped him get showered and changed. He ate something unmemorable. He needed solitude, to collect his jangled nerves into some semblance of order but when they finally left him he panicked, sure that Starsky was alone and dying.

Pelting down the hall, he nearly collided with a doctor scribbling notes on Starsky's chart.

"Your friend's incisions are healing, and his temperature is down. The antibiotics are doing their job."

"When will he be better?" Hutch asked, peering past the man into the room. Two nurses were working on Starsky, performing those daily functions that still had to be done whether a person was awake or asleep.

"This is a work in progress, no telling when things will resolve," Dr. Mathers shrugged. "Every patient heals at a different rate. Then, he'll probably need another surgery, maybe two. The left lung looks dicey and..."

Hutch didn't want to hear any more. It was too hard, too stark. Didn't they realize that? Couldn't they provide some...hope? He almost laughed. Just what he'd told Dobey he had none of, and now he wanted others to give him some. Maybe there just wasn't any left.

"Detective Hutchinson, if you could come back in about half an hour, we'll be finished then." Evelyna opened a packet of gauze in preparation for the dressing change.

"He's okay?" Hutch stared at Starsky, unnerved by the pale skin now only half covered with packing and tape. Another nurse was cutting away the bandages, carefully soaking areas that had stuck to the wounds underneath.

"He's improving, it's really good news. Dr. Kelly will probably take him off the ventilator later today."

Starsky hadn't died while Hutch was in the shower. He hadn't succumbed to the Grim Reaper while Hutch ate. He was improving. Hutch felt some fragile thing begin to uncurl deep inside. "Dr. Kelly?"

"The pulmonologist. I know it's confusing because he has so many doctors. Dr. Mathers is the surgeon. And Dr. Basinger is with infectious disease."

So many people to care for one man. One incredible man who deserved no less. Hutch sagged against the door frame, still not sure if he should really go too far away. He watched the nurses scurry around caring for the other patients in the ICU. Just outside, in the waiting room, Edith Dobey was knitting and chatting with Minnie Kaplin. Minnie had a cotton ball taped to the inside of her left elbow and was drinking a cup of orange juice with a picture of a merry orange girl on the side.

Bereft, Hutch tried to come up with something to do. He'd caught the villain. Wasn't there supposed to be some dragon to slay or maybe a princess to kiss to vanquish the spell over the kingdom? How could he save Starsky now? He was getting loopy, too exhausted to make any sense whatsoever. Taking a tentative step forward, he found he could walk. After that, it was the work of a child to punch the elevator call button and escape.

Just once, when the elevator doors shut, he had a moment of pure, unadulterated panic. Starsky needed him, he should be there--holding his hand, providing comfort--except Hutch knew he had none to give. There was an emptiness inside him wider than the Grand Canyon and deeper than any ocean on the planet.

He stepped out into the bustling hospital lobby and wondered where to go. What was expected of him in this situation? The BCPD manual had no regulations for grieving partners.

Standing numbly in the flow of people coming and going, Hutch was buffeted from all sides. The noise in the ICU had nothing on the cacophony of this place. Sirens screamed by the building, babies cried, and frantic family members stormed the information desk demanding to see their loved ones. He turned his head away from the madness, catching sight of the brilliant red of a rose, the soothing white of a lily. A candy striper twitched the tissue paper over the bouquet before piling it onto to a cart already overflowing with flowers.

People brought flowers to brighten a sickroom. That's what he could do. Revitalized with a real purpose, Hutch entered the gift shop on the left end of the lobby. The small store was bright and cheery, filled with all the flowers, candy, cards, and stuffed animals any hospitalized patient could want. A small, white-haired woman in a pink smock was arranging a display in the window, her plump backside poking out of the narrow space like a comfortable hassock.

Not seeing any flowers, Hutch fingered a small blue plush dog, smiling unconsciously. No, Starsky already had one of those. He let his hand trail over boxes of chocolates and stacks of gum. Starsky couldn't eat, nix on the candy.

"Can I help you?" The tiny woman adjusted a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes sparkling behind the polished lenses.

"F-flowers?" Hutch stammered.

"Certainly, they're in the refrigerated case. We only have a few selections, or you could call Rhoda's Dendrons. They deliver." She led him around a large display of inflated balloons to the glass booth in the rear of the shop. "What floor is your...friend on?"

"My partner. We're cops." Hutch wasn't sure why he added the last part. "ICU."

"They don't allow flowers in the ICU. Hospital rules. Maybe a balloon?"

 _No, balloons reminded him of Gillian, who had died._

"I'll just look around, I guess." Hutch shrugged helplessly.

"If you need anything, just yell, I'm trying to get this display just right before the manager returns." She grinned at him, a crooked, reckless grin too wily and mischievous for a woman who had to be in her 70s. "I'm Hope."

Hutch nearly dropped the fluffy slippers he'd picked up, his fingers nerveless. "W-what have you got there?"

"Whole new line. Angels. Aren't they sweet?" Hope pulled one of the figures out of the packing box and handed it to him. A pixie-faced cherub with glittery wings held out a plaque that read "Get Well Soon".

"Cute." He returned it to her, feeling nothing but despair.

"Guardian angels," Hope continued, arranging a few more of the dolls in a grouping. She'd used cotton balls to simulate clouds and pale blue crepe paper as a backing so it would look like they were cavorting up in heaven. "The Bible describes angels as messengers from God, fierce warriors battling for good and evil, not at all the pretty images of little girls in white nightgowns with crooked halos on their heads that most of us think of. But I like to believe there are guardian angels for all of us, don't you? Some protection from harm."

"I didn't protect him," Hutch said, belatedly realizing he'd spoken aloud.

"What, dear? Could you hand me that little dark haired one?" Kneeling in the display case, she waved one wrinkled hand at the box and steadied herself on the window ledge with the other. "I've got too many blonds on this cloud."

Searching through the excelsior that obscured half the angels in the box, Hutch found a dark-haired one and held it up. The artist had caught the laughter in the painted blue eyes giving the elfin figure a roguish charm. Dark curls tumbled over his forehead, and the wings weren't sparkly pink like so many of the others, but luminous white in perfect contrast to the red robe he wore. Draped across the cherub's hands was a banner, with the word _'Belief'_ in gold letters. Hutch was undone.

"I want this one," he said.

"Oh, that's a nice one. Belief..." Hope climbed down from her perch, brushing clinging excelsior from her apron. "Sometimes I have to remind myself to believe in goodness, have faith that life will continue. At my age, that's all there is anymore--faith, and belief in things I can't see."

Almost reluctant to part with the angel, even long enough for Hope to ring up the price, Hutch pondered the woman's words. Two people had quoted him the exact same passage in the space of an hour. Was he supposed to make something of that? "Evidence of things not seen," he corrected.

"Yes, you're right, I always forget the correct wording. You must be a good Bible reader. I'm not." She bundled the angel in a swaddling of tissue paper and slipped it into a bag. "You know a funny thing? My mother named me Faith Hope Purity Bardwell. Well, I was never much of a church-goer, and purity, not quite me. You may not believe this, but I was quite the catch in my day."

Hutch laughed, taking the bag. "You're a quite a catch now."

"Thank you, I'll tell Hiram I've got younger men courting me," she laughed, punching the keys on the cash register. "So, I decided to use Hope. A good, solid name--useful. If I wasn't quite the proper young lady my mother wanted in Faith Purity every day, I could always fall back on the hope that I would be in the future. That's six dollars and forty cents."

Hutch paid, feeling something peculiar happening just under his breastbone. Like whatever had begun to uncurl was now blossoming into fragile optimism. "Thank you, Hope."

"Thank you, dear. I know I talk too much and haven't finished that display yet--and look who's coming, the boss lady." She pointed out the glass door at a woman in a severe pants suit coming toward them and winked at him. "Still, I can't help making the connection, making someone sad smile just a little. It's what gets me through the day. You give this to your partner, and tell him you had Hope to help you out."

Clutching his bag, Hutch almost galloped back to the elevator. Somehow, he knew that Starsky was waiting for him. It was a conviction so strong that he felt transported upward, not by a steel box on a cable but by the psychic bond he shared with his partner. What had been weakened by fear now felt stronger than ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"He's waiting for you," Evelyna greeted when Hutch stepped into the ICU.

"Ken, Dave is awake," Edith said, pulling her husband out of the room with a radiant smile.

"He's pretty groggy but the doctor says he's over the infection," Dobey added.

"He's a fighter." Minnie patted Hutch's arm

Hutch pushed past the Greek chorus into the patient's room, the gaping emptiness inside him suddenly filled by the presence of his friend.

"Hey," he heard himself say and the ceaseless clamor from the machines just faded into the background when those sleepy blue eyes looked at him. He grinned idiotically and was rewarded with an equally goofy smile from Starsky which was in no way diminished by the ventilator tubing still taped in his mouth. One piece of tape had pulled free, just a little, from his left cheek and Hutch wanted to reach down and yank the entire thing loose in one swift jerk. Free Starsky from the machines.

"I was in the gift shop." Hutch plunked the bag down on the bed.

Raising his eyebrows with interest, Starsky fumbled with the wrappings but he didn't have the energy to pull away the tissue. Hutch gave him a hand, uncovering the figure that was more urchin than guardian angel. Starsky nodded weakly, touching the dark curls with the end of his finger. His throat spasmed as if he wanted to speak, but he coughed instead.

"You okay?" Hutch asked, ready to run down a nurse, do anything to stop his buddy's suffering.

Starsky closed his eyes for a long minute, his face drawn and sweaty, but he rallied, fluttering his fingers in the air before miming a paper and a pencil.

"You want to write something?" Hutch patted his pockets down for a pencil or paper. He was an investigative detective--he was supposed to carry those sorts of useful supplies with him always. Except he was wearing green scrubs purloined from the surgical nurses. "No pencil, babe."

Laughter lit Starsky ever so briefly before he grimaced, averting his gaze from Hutch because the vent tubing prevented him from turning his head. His lips moved and Hutch read the word 'Edith'. Of course, she was mom, she must have writing utensils in her purse.

Edith provided not only a pencil but a pad of paper with Snoopy cavorting with Woodstock on the bottom edge. Hutch slipped the pencil into Starsky's lax fingers, holding the paper at an angle so he could write.

It took longer than he expected for Starsky to finish the message, but Hutch didn't rush him. He was content to sit there, providing whatever support his partner needed. He knew Starsky would have done the same for him. In the end, Starsky heaved a sigh, dropping the pencil onto the bed, his hand leaving a sweaty mark on the sheets.

"Go to sleep, Starsk," Hutch urged, stroking Starsky's cheek tenderly. "Doc's gonna come take this tube out later this afternoon, and then we can talk."

Starsky nodded, searching across the covers until he found the angel. Locating it, he carefully closed his fingers around the talisman, his eyes drifting shut from the exertion.

Hutch stared down at the hard won sentence, his eyes too blurred to read it clearly. The letters were all smashed together, L's leaning against each other like a pair of chopsticks dropped on a plate of fried rice. _"We'll win this,_ " Hutch read aloud.

Fin


End file.
